Microsoft has recently injected $1 billion into an artificial intelligence research group co-founded by tech genius Elon Musk which is aiming to be the first to build a computer which matches its creators for intelligence.

The group, OpenAI, even thinks such a milestone could happen inside five years.

Currently, supercomputers can do specific tasks better than humans — such as playing chess — but don’t have what has been dubbed “Artificial general intelligence”.

This level of thinking would enable a machine to understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can.

BIG VISION: Elon Musk is part of the OpenAI group behind the new supercomputer (Image: GETTY STOCK)

According to the team, size matters.

“We think the most benefits will go to whoever has the biggest computer,” Greg Brockman, chairman and chief technology officer of OpenAI, told Financial Times.

Brockman said the $1 billion will be spent “within five years, and possibly much faster”, with the goal being a “human brain-sized model”.

The tech expert is quietly confident that the genius AI could be built within that timeline, adding: “At that point, I think there’s a chance that will be enough.”

But doubters said a supercomputer might not be able to match a human brain in complexity, even if it was almost infinitely big.

SUPERCOMPUTER: 'Mistral', currently among the world's biggest AIs, in Germany (Image: GETTY STOCK)

Stuart Russell, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in his upcoming book: “Focusing on raw computing power misses the point entirely…

“We don’t know how to make a machine really intelligent — even if it were the size of the universe.”

This comes after a leading futurist claims god-like future AI could regard humans as inferior as ants.

And scientists said they are closer to fusing people with machines after inventing “nanoprobes” which can be inserted into human cells.